Tag Archives: current events

Yes, I do realize Purim was a week ago, but we still need a column on Purim, because, well Purim is amazing. It does seem like a fairy tale. Kings, beautiful orphan girls becoming a queen (without needing a glass slipper) and a evil toad Amalekite, fancy dress balls and lots of chocolate.

Two easy fun ways you can become familiar with Purim if you don’t know what the big deal is. A cartoon, cartoons are usually good.

OR your can see this very cool memegillah. It’s the story of Ester told in memes, like Facebook. I must say, the kitten ones are very cute, as are the squirrel ones. I thank Y.B. for steering me to this.

A couple of interesting points I learned from reading this year. When King Achashverosh commanded Queen Vashti to come to his six month long party celebrating that the temple would never be rebuilt, he didn’t just say, “Hey, it’s a happening party babe, come on over”. Nope, I just learned he commanded her to come wearing her royal crown. Nothing else, just the royal crown. I have sympathy for Vashti. Till I read further and find out she is the granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar who had conquered Judea and destroyed the Holy Temple and convinced King Achashverkerchoo not to allow the Temple to be rebuilt. The party was to celebrate that the Temple would never be rebuilt. Sympathy for Vashti now =0.

Hamen, he was a decedent of the Amakalites. So there may be some historical reason behind evil Haman’s hatred of Mordachai. He initially offered King Achashverkerchoo money to be allowed to kill all the Jews. King Achashverkerchoo said “naw, good plan, you can do it for free”. The king is no hero.

The king can’t just “undo” his order to his kingdom to kill all the Jews and seize their property. No, that takes ANOTHER special memorandum. I chewed on that one. Without the government permission slip saying Jews were allowed to defend themselves they were just going to be slaughtered. Wow. Life was cheap to King Achashverkerchoo, at least Jewish life. The UN must be a descendant of King Achashverkerchoo because they don’t believe that self defense is a human right either.

So G-d worked through Mordachai and Esther to save the people because they were willing to do as he asked.

And the Temple? King Achashverkerchoo and Esther had a son, Daryavesh, (Darius). Daryavesh commanded the Temple be rebuilt. HAHAHAHA! Take that King Achashverkerchoo!

So that’s my reflections ON Purim.

But wait, there’s more.

In a recent newspaper column Hamass claimed murder of pieceful palestinians is part of Purim.

He added that the “settlers” celebrate their Jewish holidays by performing “horrible crimes of murder with the support of the occupation government and military commanders” and that there is a rabbinic “blessing” which “permits murdering and executing every Palestinian without discretion.”

The column tells us that the attacks in Ankara were committed by a terrorist that had followed the Israeli tourists from the time they left the hotel.

This column warns that Jews & Christians have been warned by Turkish police:

Jews and Christians are believed to be the target of the terror organization’s future terror attacks in the country. The warning comes just a week after three Israelis were murdered in a terror attack that took place in Istanbul, which was carried out by an ISIS terrorist.

And as we know now, there was a horrible bomb blast on Easter directed at children on a playground.

Antisemitism is on the rise in Europe and campuses across the US, often masquerading as Boycott Divest & Sanction.

Yes, the spirit of wicked Hamen is still alive and doing well, doing very well indeed.

A refection OF Purim I would say.

But it is a column about Purim, I don’t want to leave you on a down note. So think about your costume for next year, remember “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat. “ and enjoy this.

There are those that see what is happening around them and see the pattern, and see it for what it is, they recognize that pattern. Then there are those that see the pattern and because it is ugly they tell themselves they can’t possibly be seeing exactly what they are seeing and pull the covers back over their head and top it off with a pillow. Then there are those that see the pattern, look at it for two seconds and ask what time “American Idol” comes on that night. Ok, if it were National Finals Rodeo I could maybe understand a little, maybe, but sure not much. That is sad, very sad. Then there are those that see the pattern, know exactly what it is, and in fact maybe helping to contribute to it but deny that it is a pattern and vilify those that point it out. They spend their resources assuring the nervous that all is well, it’s just fine,nothing to see here, move along.

A few random things, a NY city Council man David Greenfield went on a trip to Israel, while there he went to Ramallah. While there, after a visit with the American Consul-General in Jerusalem at his Ramallah office he and the group prepared to go back to their transportation. He was asked to remove his Kippah. He refused.

“I walked into Ramallah with my yarmulke on, of course,” he said. “I was pulled aside by security personnel and was told that I should not wear my yarmulke when I was leaving the building.” The surprised Greenfield asked why he was being told this, and the answer was that “there was a security situation on the ground” and that it was not safe.”I specifically asked them if it was unsafe for me or for the group – they said it was definitely not an issue for the group but they could not guarantee my personal safety. I explained for them that for me it’s a very significant issue and that quite frankly, had I been told this in advance, I never would have agreed to come to Ramallah.”I was told that the US government was providing security and as an official, I expected them to keep up their end of the deal,” he said, adding that the request to have him remove the kippah had come from the Palestinian hosts.

Councilman Greenfield certainly gets it. This is a response he presented at a meeting. He gets it very well.

Then there is this speech by the French Prime Minister.

He gets it.

Then we have those that have walked the streets of Europe wearing a Kippah, to show reactions.

And in Paris for ten hours, but this one just loops, it’s not really that long.

We have the 51 Democrats that are Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel. They whined that they didn’t like how John Bohner invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to give the speech. Well, I don’t like Bohner. But I suspect he was correct, if he went through the White House aka the House of Hussein, there would be no speech. I’m pretty confident that if Iran develops a nuclear weapon it will affect the US as well as Israel. But barry is too busy trying to be buddies with the people that want to kill US than to allow mere facts to interfere with his enjoyment of his rainbow stew. This link has the speech embedded in the web site. Nancy Pelosi showed she could edge 20 steps closer to Prozac and a padded room when she called the speech “Insulting and condescending.” It would seem Democrats are far more invested in towing the barry boat than living in reality. They do not get it, and they also attempt to mislead the uninformed that vote for them. There is a very real threat.

I have a very sweet lady in a class I take and we had a conversation about guns. She told me she and her husband absolutely respect the Second Amendment, but they belong to the Brady campaign and they just think that all guns need to be registered to stop crime. Class was over and we were all leaving, but I suggested she do a quick internet search for the “Nuremberg Laws”. I pointed out that Hitler could easily keep Jews from owning weapons to protect themselves because they already had a list of who owned what. So when Hitler decided Jews could have nothing to do with firearms, or own them, they knew where the were, duck soup, round up. She doesn’t get it, at all. But she said she still loved me, and I still think she is a lovely lady. An easy target, but a lovely lady. That “Nuremberg Laws article is pretty interesting by the way. Some compare and contrast in it.

So knowledge and interpretation certainly play a role in what you see, and how you see it. But another aspect is your attitude about it. I recently had a very brief discussion with a Rabbi. It involved my wish that Moshe Feiglin would have been returning to the Knesset. He seemed to think that wasn’t such a great thing. I said I just think Jews should be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, and I do, and I mean right now yesterday. His comment was “When the Messiah comes back”. Really. Because this attitude of accepting little scraps of freedom, the little bits of the Jewish identity people are allowed to retain, the areas where it is safe to walk or as Y.B. pointed out, worship should all be determined by others? The Southern Cowgirl in me rears up and says “OH HELL NO”!

Because when you see attacks on a persons religion, on their ethnicity on their belief system when it harms no one else, you can just about bet the farm that not long after follow the physical attacks. WHY does it need to get to that point?

There are people who see what is happening, they see what is coming. And while the current regime uses government agencies to go after those that speak out, they still must.

1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and sayto them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a manfrom among them, and make him their watchman, 3 and if he sees the sword comingupon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4 then if anyone whohears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes andtakes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. 5 He heard the sound ofthe trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if hehad taken warning, he would have saved his life. 6 But if the watchman sees thesword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned,and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in hisiniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.~~Ezekiel 33: 1-6

These people are called Watchmen.

There is a name for those that attempt to mislead people into thinking everything is fine too, or should agree to things that have been disastrous in the past and would be again. And this song keeps going through my mind when I think about them. Yesh lanu tayis.